


When Time Shall Be No More

by Miss_M



Category: True Detective
Genre: Canon Compliant, Choices, F/M, Gen, Infidelity, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 11:31:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3248063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you have to wreck several lives, including your own, to save yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Time Shall Be No More

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for “Haunted Houses.” I own nothing.

Men use women as a convenience, a filling station on their way to something important. Funny how so few of them ever seem to get anywhere. 

After, she’ll say she didn’t know if she could go through with it, but she puts on a dress and heels which show off her legs, a bit of cleavage, hair down as for a date night. First impressions matter, and she’s never been to Rust’s home before. She brings a bottle of wine as for a housewarming, seven years too late. A present for a man who wouldn’t much value the gesture, might find the alcohol content too low for his gut. 

Sometimes you have to wreck several lives, including your own, to save yourself. 

Maggie has learned the hard way that being just a stopping point is no way to live. She is no longer content to matter only when someone needs or wants her for their convenience. With kids, it’s different, it’s expected that she’ll be used, Maggie has never questioned this. Her second husband plays a lot of golf and works long hours, but he rarely misses dinner, never forgets to kiss her cheek on his way out in the morning. 

Why, then, is it that when she pictures her life as a single scene, a genre painting perhaps, all her years compressed into a single moment, she sees a woman, still youthful, sitting in a dark house, phone pressed to her ear, lies and the silent lacunae where lies should be stuffing her head like cotton wool, and a slightly older woman sitting in her car in front of a man’s house, a bottle of wine unopened on the passenger seat while she swigs Jim Beam straight out of the bottle like some old drunk, trying to stop her makeup from smudging?

Maggie remembers a story she once heard: a woman may greet a man at the door and kiss him, but his brother’s welcome will warm his heart once he crosses the threshold and enters. 

A cold little story about mechanical puppets masquerading as people. Maggie is tired of being the threshold guardian in her life. She gets out of the car, heads up the path to Rust’s door, striding lest she falter, wobbling just a little on her heels, her knees shaky with liquor and risk and determination. She’s made her choice, but it has yet to run its course. Maggie remains free of consequences, her hand raised to knock.

Some moments you balance on forever. Even after you tip one way or the other, you go on living in them.

**Author's Note:**

> The story Maggie remembers is “The Prophets’ Paradise” from Robert W. Chambers’ _The King in Yellow_.


End file.
